PACE
Why Did California Realtors Do an About Face on PACE?
2017-07-11
Checks and Balances Project received a reader tip in May alleging the California Association of REALTORS (C.A.R.) has subjected Bakersfield, California, among other localities, to an intense anti-PACE campaign. PACE or Property Assessed Clean Energy programs provide homeowners in California, Missouri and Florida with upfront financing for energy efficient and renewable energy improvements to their… Read more »
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Pandemic Relief Funds
Bakersfield CA Councilmember Bob Smith Subject of Public Records Inquiry
2017-06-14
A Local Spotlight on the National Effort to Undermine Property Assessed Clean Energy Recent reports have called our attention to what appears to be a coordinated attack on Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE). PACE allows homeowners to finance residential and commercial energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, as well as hurricane-mitigation and other improvements, through… Read more »
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California Official Denies Lobbying by Arizona Anti-Rooftop Solar Hired Gun
California Official Denies Lobbying by Arizona Hired Gun
2015-12-14
  Lon Huber was special projects advisor for RUCO, the Residential Utility Consumer Office of Arizona, when, in 2013, he proposed a new kind of fee to Chairman Bob Stump of the Arizona Corporation Commission. Huber’s idea was a “fixed charge on every solar customer’s bill.” It would become the nation’s first monthly utility fee for customers who… Read more »
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Is TURN’s Relationship with California Utility Commissioner Mike Florio More Important than Consumer Protection?
2015-06-3
Checks and Balances Project did something yesterday we haven’t done before: we requested records from a well-known consumer protection nonprofit. In a letter to California’s The Utilities Reform Network (TURN), we asked the organization to voluntarily provide communications records with Mike Florio, a public utility commissioner under fire for ethical misconduct who had been its… Read more »
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